


Adamantine Flame

by brasspetal



Category: Black Sails
Genre: Alternate Universe, Dark, Developing Relationship, GreekGod!Flint, Happy Ending, M/M, Norse/Greek/Egyptian Mythologies, mixture of myths
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-17
Updated: 2018-06-17
Packaged: 2019-05-24 04:05:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 19,565
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14947250
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brasspetal/pseuds/brasspetal
Summary: When the world was made of dark he swiped his thumb over the horizon and woke the sun. It wasn't a primordial burn of light but the one that rose his lids for the first time.--Flint is a forest god called The Flame and Silver is part of the cult that worships him on the fringes of the underworld.





	1. The Pit

**Author's Note:**

> This is mostly silverflint with some hints at silverflinthamilton. I mixed up a lot of mythologies in this and it's been a lot of fun to write. I really hope you enjoy it! Thank you to those that helped keep me motivated along the way <3
> 
> Check out this gorgeous art piece for this fic by @riisinaakka [here](https://riisinaakka-draws.tumblr.com/post/174982146498/adamantine-flame-when-the-world-was-made-of-dark)!

When the world was made of dark he swiped his thumb over the horizon and woke the sun. It wasn't a primordial burn of light but the one that rose his lids for the first time.

The silence housed no ticking. 

Silver drew his pen over the parchment and as he wrote in congregation of his thoughts, he gave reprieve to a man that once lacked identity. 

Speaking his name is the telling of a story.

\--

Long Ago

\--

In the valley of the mountain there is a path made from bone.

It is a place where sunlight is imprisoned behind the grey periphery of smeared clouds. It’s usually quiet at this time of half-lighted day but something echoes within the slope of trees like a slick slide of material against soil.

Hands outstretched above a head of gray hair scratch along limply through the twigs. A soft grunt is released from the one who held the man’s feet. The one who dragged the man through the woods.

The one with their hair tied back with a wet rope in a loose bun. The lithe silent one with the damp clothing that is not his own; clothing he stole from someone else, someone who lived beyond the trees to a place forbidden.

There is a dark square of a cabin ahead of him like a void resting between the trunks. He can hear it breathing and he used to believe it was his own. It too has roots like veins.

He drags the man to the back of the small cabin where a burnt blackened pole stuck out of the Earth like a nail.

Thunder rumbles like a growl in the distance.

There’s a drizzle that dampens the air when he ties the man’s wrists tightly with a rope to the pole. The man’s feet drag slightly on the mud but he will be unable to escape the bonds.

Silver has practiced tying knots since he can remember and he’s become proficient in the task. They are like effortless puzzle pieces. He can loop his skin around them and set himself free from any tie.

He thinks about the burn of rope as he presses his finger into the mud and swipes two lines of it across his cheeks; a parallel divide.

The cabin breathes and the man begins to awaken.

Silver doesn’t need to be here for this. His duty for the morning is done.

The branches clack together like teeth and he presses his bare feet into the dirt softened from the rain. His skinny legs carry him towards the path to the settlement and it’s when he eyes the first carved symbol etched into a tree that he hears the screaming.

Has he grown used to the terror? Perhaps he doesn’t wish to admit complacency but it’s inevitable. This place is built on fear. He can hear it, he can taste it; tangy and bitter like sweat held in the mists.

The trees fall away and open to the settlement. He halts at the beginnings of the dirt path leading to the small wooden cabins planted close together like roots from an old tree. There is a burnt grey hue to the fog reflected against the small collection of dwellings.

In the center is a larger cabin than the rest with a small peaked tower that rises above with a rusted bell. A rope hangs down from it to be pulled in warning or in announcement.

This is who he is.

He reflects the buildings and the eerie backdrop of the trees which are thin and close together like bundles of twigs.

It has always been this way since he first opened his eyes. The perpetual cycle of obedience and living between pockets of the fog.

There’s a cloudburst a moment later. He’s suddenly soaked in the ruddy downpour of rainwater with strands of his hair plastered to his cheeks. The droplets glide down like tears. His clothes become heavy and soaked while weighing down his limbs. His feet sink in the mud which collects uncomfortably between his bare toes and he listens to nothing but the rain drowning them. Drowning their world out to everything else.

Tonight is the yearly Feast in tribute to the Adamantine Flame. The one who was birthed from fire to rule the mud sinking his toes. The one they’ve named Flint. The one that requires sacrifice and obedience.

Silver has read about Flint’s journey from the underworld and how he was trapped in this realm seeking a way home. He’s marked followers to cultivate the forest.

They are the chosen and yet the eroding sense of wrongness hasn’t escaped him. Not only did their routines seem to grow more meaningless, he feels most days that he is the wrong shape.

He steps out of the rain into the nearest cabin and observes the candles flicker at his entrance giving way to his shadow; his shape.

He’s dripping on the dusty wooden floor. The leftover rain falls down his eyelashes to his chin and he can’t help but stare at his shadow.

It is not his shape and yet it is. The unsettling notion is that this doesn’t feel quite like his body at all.

He lifts his palms in front of him, dirty from the work and pulls back his collar to reveal the jagged line of a scar above his breastbone where he's marked.

He thinks the child that was born into this body somehow disappeared when he was given this mark. Then he came to be like a seed planted. He grew and consumed the other occupant inside his mind, the original host, like a deadly parasite.

These are not his hands.

He’s an entity, an occupying force with no memory of his arrival only clouded guesses. Only the blatant unease.

“Silver…” the familiar voice whispers from behind him.

He turns and observes his shadow turn with him.

Billy Bones is standing by the stairs leading to the cellar and the dark circles under his eyes match his cracked lips. He looks as though he’s been stranded without sustenance for days.

“What happened to you?” This unease is new compared to the usual dose of dread. This is something else entirely. Something he can’t pinpoint.

“Not here. Meet me by the white pine before the feast begins,” Billy requests and Silver is unable to answer because he disappears out of the door behind him.

The doubt begins that day beneath the rain when he steps back outside to its embrace.

He knows Billy wishes to speak about Hal Gates who went missing on his usual trek through the woods. He imagines the trees listening to his disillusionment, the same as Gates.

Gates lost his tether to the Flame.

He’s fumbling with the grip of it and Billy could bring the chaos needed to eventually sustain order. Would that mean he’s using his delirium? Perhaps, but all at once he still cared for Billy’s well-being. They have known each other since…

Silver halts his thought pattern as the rain lessens to a soft pattering and he realizes he doesn’t remember. He doesn’t remember how they met.

Silver feels the sharp disconnect like a thread starting to fray and Ben Gunn waves him over to help set up the tables for the grand feast.

\--

The torches are lit up around the square to provide a sense of purpose or a path but all Silver’s sees are eyes glaring in the dark.

“Will there be a sacrifice?” He asks DeGroot.

“Not this year unless there is a volunteer.” DeGroot looks out towards the empty darkness of the field.

The exchange stays with him even though they separate and he turns to glance at the shifting branches behind him to spot Billy’s shadow at the edge next to the white pine.

Silver traverses the length of dark to reach him away from the torches. It is told among their group that one can speak freely beside the white pine without fear of ears listening in. Silver suspects that it is a lie but he isn’t going to correct Billy on his beliefs.

“The feast is nearly ready,” Silver attempts to convey his discomfort but Billy steps into his space. “There is an outcast who lives in the forest, one who burned the mark from his skin.” Silver observes the wild-eyed expression of a man who hasn’t slept properly in some time.

“He would not allow an outcast to live in his forest, Billy.”

Billy shakes his head swiftly and quickly replies, “he knows how to hide. Flint can’t see him.”

Silver crosses his arms in rapt curious confusion, “why are you telling me this then?”

“You and Ben are the only people I can trust. We must work together to be free of him,” Billy admits and Silver steps back. His bare foot connects with a twig but it doesn’t snap at his skin.

“That is an impossible task and one that you should not throw around. It could very well mean your death,” Silver warns. He needs Billy to awaken from his insanity but he recognizes the fresh grief. Gates was very much a mentor to him, to many men in this settlement.

“Gates wished for freedom from this place. Are you not tired of luring men here to their deaths? It is better to try for the men, for all of us,” Billy supplies and Silver recognizes he’s made up his mind.

“I cannot follow you down this path. I must beg you to reconsider your position on this matter,” Silver pleads.

Billy’s madness evolves into something dark and hooded in shadow, “you are not blind. You see what’s being done and yet you wish to feast despite the corpses.”

“This is an underworld of its own making, Billy. This is his domain. You must think rationally about what you speak of. Not only could the consequence of it be your death but it would mean the punishment of the other men, your brothers,” Silver tries but he can tell his words aren’t reaching him before they are understood. Billy doesn’t want to see reason. He wants a way out.

“You’re a coward,” Billy snaps and Silver knows he’s lost his traction.

“I am saying that we must be patient.”

This is a trap, a cage but he is also a survivor and they are doing what needs to be done. Silver has always been biding his time but for what he doesn’t truly understand.

“Enjoy the feast,” Billy says with a snarl.

He watches Billy walk towards the shadows away from the torches. There’s a storm brewing at the edges of their horizon and the terror of it is insurmountable.   

\--

The feast itself isn’t much different than all the others he’s attended. Even with the rain drizzling down to dampen their skin, it doesn’t lessen the celebration.

Although, Silver sat at one of the wooden tables silent to the rest. His thoughts went to Billy and his absence and it has not gone unnoticed. He needs to find a way to bring him back to reason but most of his arguments he doesn’t believe himself anymore. He can’t convince himself.

He doesn’t remember how long he’s lied to himself. That he’s grateful, that he is honored to be chosen by the Flame.

_Lies._

This is about surviving.

“Silver.”

His name is called by DeGroot who waits on the gravel path as everyone stands from their seats.

It’s tradition for them to have their turn to walk beyond the torchlight to the field where a circular pit in the ground as big as a well resides. It’s seen as a sacred right to kneel before the deep dark and peer into the abyss. Others have said they’ve seen their future, their hopes and what they feared.

Silver has never seen anything.

He’s lied in the past because he knows what happens to those who don’t believe enough to look.

He wonders if everyone lies and that when they look into that hole in the earth they truly see nothing but muddy darkness.

He steps out into the field beyond the torches and walks towards the gaping mouth of it. It’s wider than he remembers and he wonders if it’s growing outwards to consume. It would be a gradual fall.

He kneels at the edge of it and glances at the darkness of the woods before peering into the depths below him.

He’s seen someone thrown down into the blackness of their own choice and never seen again. He wonders where it leads to and how far it travels. He grips a small rock in the grass and is tempted to nudge it over. Would he hear it meet an end?

What kind of infinity is it then?

The men say it was here before time but Silver thinks that is a lie too.

He’s tempted to let himself fall over the edge, he even teeters on purpose. He tests his resolve by believing there  _is_  an end. Does he see himself abstractly?

Perhaps that is what he will tell the others when they eagerly ask.

He saw himself made into the dark like the stars.

In truth, he wonders what faith he must have to see beyond and how many years he could spend sitting here before the edge of it.

The promise of immortality but only faced with one’s guilt.

That is what the Flame, Flint, conjures. He projects guilt as his own, distorting that which they believe to be real. It is like seeing images in a fire.

To give a piece of oneself. He can’t fathom it.

A bell sings loudly into the night and Silver snaps from his ruminations. He stands from the pit and glances at the men who’ve all halted what they were doing.

They are waiting.

It was one ring of the bell, one tug of the frayed rope, meaning not the flame but the  _other_  approaches. The one who speaks for him.

“Mr. Hamilton,” One of the men whispers and Silver watches the figure appear from the dark and head towards their path.

He’s wearing a dark coat with boots that splash in the mud apathetically and he’s holding a black satchel.

The torches flicker at his presence as if the light is unable to reach his face which rests partially in shadow. He steps through the crowd silently until he halts on the gravel in line with Silver.

“Come with me, Silver and the rest must continue with the feast,” Mr. Hamilton says and a low rumble of thunder echoes in the distance from the mountains.

Silver cautiously complies and follows Mr. Hamilton into the large cabin with the steeple in the center backed by foggy tendrils.

He’s never directly spoken to him before. He has seen him come and go but he mostly kept to himself. The others are fearful of his presence each time he grants them with it and none dare approach unless they are spoken or asked to.

What he does know is that Mr. Hamilton doesn’t age but beyond that, he couldn’t say.

He watches him walk up the stairs without a word and Silver carefully follows him up the creaking wood.

Mr. Hamilton unlocks the nearest door at the top with a brass key and pockets it again as he opens it. Silver lingers beside the stairs as he watches Mr. Hamilton be swallowed by the dark of the room. 

“No need to wait for an invitation. I already gave you one.”

The voice comes from inside and Silver steps into the doorway. Mr. Hamilton lights a cracked lantern that brightens up the morbid scenery. In the center of the room is a dried orchid bed resting beneath a coffin.

“If you may, please kneel before her,” Mr. Hamilton gestures to the coffin as he lights a row of candles against a desk filled with scribbled paper.

Silver glances at the polite man with the light hair and crisp blue eyes. He has a pleasing face but there is something to his smile. Something eerily misplaced as if he hasn’t used the expression for some time.  

He kneels in front of the coffin and observes the simple wooden shape of it. Dead orchids rest below his knees and crumble with his small movement. This room lacks windows and any kind of natural light. He’s never been in it before and it feels as though he’s intruding on a private space not meant for his observations.

“Who is she?” Silver chances and swallows against the dead silence that follows. He can’t hear Mr. Hamilton moving around anymore behind him. No sound of the scrape of boots or the opening of a book. He feels as though he shouldn’t turn to look, that he should keep his eyes on the coffin.

It’s a moment later that he flinches when he feels a hand rest lightly on the top of his head. It’s a ghost of a touch.

“The reason why I called you here is because I heard you are different. Independent. You have your own thoughts.”

Mr. Hamilton’s tone is light but Silver can’t help but sense a growing dark tension. His hand remains on his head as if to keep him there.

“The plot with Billy…” Mr. Hamilton begins and Silver stiffens. He searches for a lie to present him with but he recognizes that Mr. Hamilton would see through whatever story he wishes to spin.

He wonders if he is somehow reading his thoughts this very moment.

“Billy is grieving over the loss of Gates. They were close and he is—”

Mr. Hamilton’s interrupts with the lift of his hand from his head and he feels suddenly dizzy from the loss of connection.

“May I ask something of you?”

Silver blinks in the direction of the coffin and he watches the shadows wane over the wood like docile small creatures.

“What do you wish of me?” Silver’s voice is steady although his heartbeat is gradually heightening. He feels as though he is before the pit once more.

“I want you to cultivate Billy’s fear. You are a good liar, Silver. A story-teller. I want you to be on his side.”

Mr. Hamilton’s voice lilts around him like a scent of a poisonous flower.

“I wasn’t aware there were sides,” Silver bravely states.

He listens to Mr. Hamilton’s boots against the wood as he steps in front of him and bends down to his level.

Being this close to those blue eyes is like sitting with a tiger without knowing whether it will pounce.

“There are always sides to every shadow. You have many. Do not play ignorant with me,” Mr. Hamilton comments with a small smile as he sets his palm on Silver’s cheek.

The warmth of his fingers is a surprise and it’s oddly gentle even if the warning is clear.

“Why feed into Billy’s plan?” Silver asks and Mr. Hamilton’s features display amusement. He’s pleased with the question.

His thumb brushes over Silver’s cheekbone, “contrary to belief, we are here to preserve a sense of peace within this community. You are the chosen. Plucked from entropy and given purpose here.”

He doesn’t remember being plucked out of a life. All he remembers is this one; perpetual.

“Why?” Silver attempts.

Mr. Hamilton pulls back and stands, opening his view to the coffin again when he walks away.

“You must call me Thomas and you are required by Flint to meet. He will explain better than I could.”

“Flint? The Flame?” Silver’s thoughts tumble into a panic.

“Do not speak to the others, just leave promptly. Head for the forest path and you will know from there.” Thomas proceeds to instruct him.

“Into the dark woods? Am I to take a torch?” Silver questions because he knows he must ask.

“No. You don’t need to bring fire to the Flame. Go now.”

Silver stands quickly, eyeing the room once more as if to memorize it and Thomas clasps his hands in the shadow of the room with a small polite smile.

Silver doesn’t convey his terror of traversing the woods in the dark but he knows that he doesn’t need to. That Thomas knows of his discomfort already even before he entered this sacred room.

There are no other words exchanged and as he heads back outside to the pattering of rain once more, he can’t help but wonder if that was a test.

He is unsure if he passed and that truly unsettles him immensely.

The other men don’t approach him but they watch frightened with curiosity as he walks past them on the path towards the dark giants that resemble looming eerie trees.  


	2. Orchid

To be without moonlight seems planned.

Silver somehow thinks that they had waited until the banishment of it to retrieve him and now he stumbles barefoot in the dark with leaves collecting between his toes.

He rests his hand on the rough bark of the tree that nearly cuts his finger for the effort. He wonders if they would go to this trouble for Flint to devour him? To have the Flame claim him? Did they know his thoughts? That he’s waning in his resolve for this place?

They have to know.

The thought lays waste to his calm demeanor. He’s been nothing but loyal and now he feels caught out. Exposed to the dark like a traitor.

He steps willingly into a clearing that is barely visible and he waits on the edge of it. Something told him to stay as if Thomas’ hand rests on his head.

He observes the fog thicken in the background and wrap around the trees like ribbons. He hears the cracking of branches and the snapping of twigs. He thinks of bones at his feet, bones made from the trees. He wonders if such a thing is a reality and what he is seeing now is a projection.

It doesn’t take long for the hair on the back of his neck to stand up as if he is about to be struck by lightning.

It’s when he spots the figure step out of the crowd of trees that he stiffens his posture. The shadow is the size of a man and he has heard he can take many forms. Is this for his fear then? To find a shape to relate to?

Although Silver himself feels more jagged then his own outline lets on.

He doesn’t bow as the others would. He waits in silence, watching the Flame that is Flint approach him. He doesn’t look away.

The figure stops in the center of the clearing and bends down for a moment to hover his hand over a group of twigs which light up immediately to be devoured by his fire.  

He waits at the edges of the forest as if he could run but the illusion of such a choice is blatantly apparent. He can see the surroundings clearer now from the flames and the silhouette of Flint’s broad-shouldered frame.

“You are the one they call Silver.” His voice is husky and dark. There’s a hint of curiosity in the tone.

Silver slowly approaches the fire with a reply, “you are the one we call the Flame.”

He doesn’t bow but something tells him that is not what he wishes for him to do. Flint meets his eyes in the shapes created by the licking flames and it’s like peering into that abyss again only seeing something this time.

A reflection for his jagged edges to match to. It’s altogether bewildering and fascinating. He expected to feel fear standing in his presence but all he senses is a release. It’s as if he’s unlatched his own shackles, except for the one that remains tethered to the Flame himself.

His hair is wild and red and it comes to his neck. A crown that resembles a punctured birds nest of old dried twigs rests on his head with the leaves still sprouting. He looks made of the woods, born of the roots. His skin is pale and lightly smattered with freckles like soil flakes. He’s wearing a dark militia-style coat with a tattered rope tied around his waist to hold small pouches and a carved hilt of an ancient dagger.

Silver knows he looks like all the rest, with his dark long curly hair tied back into a loose bun at his back. His clothes are torn and old with nothing to show for them but holes at the ends of frayed string. He’s barefoot as he always is and dirt smudges his skin where he drew it across his cheeks earlier that morning.

“Thomas sent you to me.”

Flint’s voice rumbles inside of him.

“He said that you would explain things to me,” Silver’s reply is quick.

He isn’t shying away from keeping eye contact. He knows it may be considered disrespectful but he’s never been one for ceremony.

Nothing is said and Silver stands quietly in front of the flames. He eyes the searing waves of it, picking out images he can’t quite make out inside.

He thinks about how repetition has blocked out his childhood. He has no memory of running in the mud of this place, no memory of collecting dust like a doll, no memory of being snatched and thrown into this hell.

“Are we at the surface of the underworld?”

He asks because he needs to know. The knowledge of it plagues him but he doesn’t receive the answer he seeks.

“There is a man who used to be a confidant to Thomas and I. He severed his ties and in doing so took something precious from us both. He knows how to hide and I cannot see his mark. You’ve been chosen to take on Billy’s plan, find the wretch named Peter Ashe and deliver me his heart.”

The words strike Silver like points of needles into his skin. He’s to find this man, kill him and cut out his heart to deliver it to the God of the wood, the God of flame.

He attempts to remain passive and unbothered by the task but fails miserably. He suspects if he doesn’t take on this task then he will only walk out of these woods as a phantom.

“What about Billy? What will happen to him?” Silver asks because he is not to be responsible for his death as well. Not one of them.

“He will burn.”

Flint lifts his hand over the fire and it snaps at him, casting a glow over his pale skin.

“There is banishment. I know it’s not used often but that may be an—”

Flint interrupts Silver, “you’ve done nothing to earn this plea. You’ve not earned anymore of my patience on this matter.”

The fire burns out sending smoke up between them and Silver searches in the haze but Flint is gone. He is alone in the clearing once again.

A chill settles in his spine like a spider between the rose groves of bone. He’s unsure of what to make of the feeling that Flint leaves him with but he’s latched onto it. It is both terrifying and alluring.

How was he to do this? To seek out this Peter Ashe and murder him? They must know he is teetering on disbelief. This must be something to gain back Silver’s faith but has he ever had it?

He can’t remember anything beyond the mirror inside of a mirror. A day inside of a day. All wrapped inside his chest. He is standing outside of the thread of time. Is he to sew his own way?

Billy’s paranoia is not to be trusted nor does he trust Thomas or Flint in their darkness but it calls to him still. It beckons like smiling eyes.

\--

The men eye him suspiciously once he arrives back at the settlement. It’s as if they are surprised he made it out alive. That he is still intact as if he is an illusion. He couldn’t blame them.

Several of the torches have been burned out by the rain and it casts a deep shadow across the camp. He quietly makes his way inside.

Billy corners him once he enters one of the cabins out of the mist, “what did they want with you?”

Silver glances around the empty room before whispering, “they want me to find Peter Ashe and bring him here.”

It’s a small lie but he can’t afford to be completely open with any of them. They all have their own agendas. He has to gain some traction ahead of them one way or another.

Billy’s complexion is hollowed out, paler than before and Silver wonders if he’s slept at all.

“What we are going to do?”

Silver stays silent for a moment. Maybe it’s cruel to let him stew but if he’s going to play tug of war with himself then he’ll at least feign fear.

“Find out more from Peter Ashe and how he removed his brand. I see them now for who they are. I don’t wish to be party to it. I have closed my eyes to the madness for an eternity.”

He doesn’t wish for Billy to burn, he doesn’t want any of them to burn but if Peter Ashe must die to buy them more time then he will succumb to it. He will make himself into a tool for the dark.

He has led men to their death, he has given them as a sacrifice but he has yet to murder, to take, but his options were simply to do the task or burn. He doesn’t think Flint or Thomas would take kindly to him betraying them.

There is also that shaded space in the back of his mind, the feralness of his origin. He recognizes a likeness in their night. He is intrigued by it and such a thing should not make him lose focus but it is. He wishes to know them despite his reservations.

“How am I to know they didn’t turn you to their side?” Billy tilts his head at him and Silver keeps his stoicism intact.

“You don’t but either way this is the only opportunity you have. Is the risk worth it to you?” Silver is in no mood to be a form of reassurance to anyone.

Billy steps back out of his space and turns away from him to begin weighing his options. He watches the tightness in his shoulders push and pull.

“Peter Ashe cannot die, Silver.”

Billy’s voice is soft but Silver is perceptive, he recognizes the quiet tone is a manipulation. He is trying to provoke sympathy and he waits for the final cue.

Billy continues, “we’ve been trapped under Flint’s thumb long enough. Even if it takes befriending a madman in the process. It is what must be done to survive.”

“What must be done…” Silver repeats and Billy turns to face him while he digs in the pockets of his rain-soaked britches and pulls out a tattered piece of paper.

“I’ve drawn the directions to Mr. Ashe in case you changed your mind and we could go together but I sense that this is a task for you to do on your own.”

Billy holds out the paper to Silver and he takes it gently. He smooths out the crinkles with his fingers and his eyes glide over the scribbled winding lines like a map to nowhere.

“I am required to do this on my own, I’m afraid. You will have to trust that I complete the task.”

Silver isn’t sure he trusts himself but Billy seems desperate. He somehow knew he’d cave to the logic.

“For Gates,” Billy whispers and there’s a shine to his eyes. It’s his way of pleading with the humanity that Silver still has inside him but Silver didn’t know Gates well. If he was being honest, the attempted plea meant nothing to him but he acts like it does. He nods with resolute understanding and places his hand lightly on Billy’s shoulder.

“Do you remember how we got here?” Silver asks abruptly and watches Billy’s expression fade to confusion from the quick turn of subject.

“Gates brought me here when I was a boy.”

Silver squints at him with concern, “you remember then? I don’t remember.”

It was a truth he let him have. He doesn’t remember.

“You came from the pit.”

Billy says it calmly as if it is a natural occurrence as if it is something they’ve accepted and Silver suddenly feels that same chill claim him, all of him.

“The pit? I came from the hole in the ground outside? The one we kneel to during feast day?” Silver searches his mind for an explanation but doesn’t find one.

“You really don’t remember?” Billy’s look of concern doesn’t help. “You climbed out of the pit, were covered in mud and you were delirious. When you came to you told us your name. That was years ago. You were the only one to ever escape it. Nothing has ever come out of it since.”

Silver feels shaky as if the memory is there but he’s unable to see it, unable to discern it, like his own jagged puzzle piece.

He folds the map and sticks it in his pocket, “I’ll take care of this.”

He can’t look at Billy and see the suspicion there as if making him remember the unsettling truth of it will dredge up old worries amongst the men.

The dread he feels is unmatched. He doesn’t understand how something so terrifying could be his beginning and yet he has no recollection of it at all. Are there other things he doesn’t remember about himself? Is that why he feels like an imposter in this place? Where had he come from?

He suspects whatever lies at the bottom of that hole is nothing remotely pleasant. What was he? Why had he come here?

He quickly avoided the stares from the men as he walked to the edge of the forest by the white pine but not in its direct vicinity. He sits down on the grass taking a calming breath and looks up to the dark cloud filled sky. The storm has reached them.

\--

It roars like a chorus of moans outside. He wouldn’t be surprised if something crawled out of the blackened clouds.  

They take shelter inside the cabins and Silver rushes in with the last of them into the steepled building much like a church that houses the room with the effigy.

The wind outside is ferocious and wraps itself viciously around the wood, shaking the windows while howling. It sounds like a plea to him more than a warning but others have taken to huddling against the wall with shivering fright.

He wonders if Thomas still resides upstairs and he watches the shadows paint themselves over the wood from their nervous candles. The flickering is erratic.

There are whispers amongst the men, preoccupied with asking why they were being punished by the weather. Silver knew it isn’t punishment but an opportunity.

He steps up the creaking staircase and stands at the closed door to the room. The wind batters the window to his right but he steps forward and knocks once despite his growing anxiety.

The door unlatches softly but it doesn’t open. He reaches for the doorknob on a breath and turns the cold metal hesitantly slow. It clicks and then creaks open.

Inside the room, it is dark as pitch and the rain is louder in this tomb of a space. Lantern light rests in the corner with the sound of turning pages. Thomas is sitting at a battered desk at the end of the room, searching through parchment, “shut the door would you please.”

Silver complies, shutting out the outside world. He notices that the coffin is gone from the center of the room. The bed of dried orchids that formed around its shape remains.

“What happened….to—”

“We are preparing her for when you return,” Thomas remarks and scribbles something with a raven feathered quill inside a notebook.

“Preparing her? For my return? I don’t understand.”

Silver glances at the shadows that stretch above Thomas’ frame, they look contorted.

“Come and sit.” He commands and points to a nearby rickety chair resting against the wall. Silver doesn’t wish to refuse. He walks slowly over to it like a spider leaving its web and sits down in it.

He is now at level with Thomas, sitting against the same wall. Silver turns sideways in the chair to face him with his hands in his lap.

“How is Billy?” Thomas asks and closes the old book he’s scribbling in to give him his full attention. It sets him reeling once again from the simple intensity of his eyes.

Silver pulls the map from his pocket and it crinkles in his fingers. The storm outside is desperate in its plea but for what? Silver doesn’t know yet.  

“He drew a map to his whereabouts.”

Thomas holds out his hand politely and asks, “may I see it?”

Silver is tempted to refuse him to see what will happen but Thomas blinks at him with an unreadable gaze.

He stands from the chair and walks over to him to hold out the messy parchment.

Silver glances at the dried orchids covering the floor and suddenly startles when Thomas’ hand latches onto his wrist. His fingers wrap around the circumference of it and he pulls the map to him without touching the page.

Silver’s shoulders go rigid and he lets a quiet breath loose, “why me? What is the real reason?”

Thomas looks up at him, keeping his fingers locked over his wrist, “we are in need of a third.”

Silver feels a cold chill trap his arm from those fingers, one of terror and intrigue. He despised how enthralled he has become in such a short time. Were they not the enemy? Or was he not seeing the whole picture?

“A third?”

Thomas lets his wrist go and Silver folds the map to rest in his pocket once again.

“Complete this task and we will have a place for you.”

Silver nods because he understands, because he wants to see where this leads. His curiosity could be perceived as a weakness or the one thing he has that none of the others like him do. He could take Billy’s path, lead them to believe he wishes to be one of them, get in close and bring freedom but at what cost?

Thomas has a small smile growing for him as he rests his hands neatly in his lap and he says, “you are already coming into your own. Like a bloom.”

“Billy told me how I was found. Why don’t I remember? Was it you? Did you do something?” Silver is bold in his accusation but it doesn’t falter Thomas’ amusement from his lips.

“I did nothing. You don’t remember because that is when you came into being. We often don’t remember our point of origin. Others may relay the memory to us and it becomes our own but I cannot recall the beginning of my existence.”

The realization that Thomas is finite is a curious one. It leaves Silver wishing to push for things that he shouldn’t care to know but the want is blatantly obvious. 

“You know nothing of my origin? What of Flint….The Flame?”

Thomas’ eyes trace over his shoulders as if he is memorizing his shape. The shape that never felt like it belonged to him. Did he know? How could he?

“Only you know. Those memories are yours alone. They don’t belong to anyone,” Thomas is surprisingly gentle with his wording and Silver believes him. He knows he shouldn’t trust him but he believes him.

Only he had sway over his past and now his future. That is what he is telling him.

He could choose to kill Peter Ashe, their betrayer, and claim his heart or he could upset the order to become a temporary savior but for who? Certainly not Billy, they would have him burned.

“Flint is going to have Billy burned?” He askes because he needs to know.

Thomas sighs, “he is showing you his teeth. Not all things are as dire as they seem. The men like to create paranoia but I’ve learned to accept the fear they gift us.”  

Silver notices where Thomas is pointing on the desk to a rusted dagger meant for his hands.

He stands at a precipice. The wolves behind him have yet to show their teeth but they are there lurking with their gleaming eyes. He is terrified of what lies in wait below the metaphorical edge. He’ll have to leave when the storm lessens. It howls and ravages the cabin with its own death.


	3. Heart

Silver sits in silence with the men below and listens as the storm begins to fade away. All that’s left is the pounding of his heart.

He wonders if he will arrive back to see that Billy has burned. He hoped it wouldn’t be so but he is unable to decipher what their intent is. If they’ll punish or renew.

The image of himself climbing out of the pit years ago doesn’t leave his mind. It repeats itself like a mantra with the silent words of ‘who are you.’

Who is he?

He doesn’t know.

He stands from the floor and heads for the door without a glance back at the men. He knows they are watching him, he knows they are curious what his business is but he can only remain silent to their stares.

He slips a pair of old boots on and he steps from the cabin into the wet world of mud and pine. It smells like the suffocating earth and the storm that dug up new soil to till. The path is flooded and his boots splash in the aftermath.

The dagger is snug against his side like a reminder. The blade that he’s supposed to use to carve out Ashe’ heart. It was a pitiable thing, rusted, aged with grim and stained. He thinks he’s dreamed of this dagger like it was made from his palm, to be sewn into his skin.

Is that what his guilt will mirror?

To steal a heart.

He is terrified he won’t feel anything once the deed is done. It would confirm the darkness inside him but perhaps he was born from it as they were. Is he returning home?

It feels like a welcome embrace and the thought of it chills him deep in rooted bone. He is made of dirt and only meant for the soil.

He walks through an archway of sideways dried trees that remained bent to form a path. A path to the true nature of this task.

He feels the rising dread of being watched from a place he couldn’t see and it heightens as he stops to pull out the map from his pocket. It would be a day’s journey and he’d have to make camp before arriving.

Did the brambles know? Could they hear his footsteps and recognize the future in them? He hopes they could somehow tell them what darkness lies in wait. He is impatient for it and yet is terrified of the consequence. It isn’t a trembling primal fear but a fear of reflection.

He is afraid to be seen by them. The one that gave him this blade and the one that asked him to cut.

A twig lashes out at him when he veers from the path and releases a small amount of blood from his arm as an offering. He lets the forest take what it needs from him. He has always been good at letting things happen and watching with curiosity as things unfold.

He sets up camp not long after the sun finds slumber and watches as the flames spark to life in front of him. It’s a small campfire with its flames not yet matured but it provides warm when he lies down beside it.

It is about trust and when he closes his eyes to the cracking twigs he lets himself believe that he is safe from whatever beasts might lurk around him.

His dreams are like dull knives. They gleam like death but don’t deliver the promise. He sees ghosts of the men he’s given to sacrifice. The ones he’s helped drag through the mud for their cause.

What peace is this?

He recognizes the scratching in his skull. Flint is showing him his guilt and some can be driven mad by it but Silver has looked at it from the start. He’s recognized his dying obedience.

His eyes snap open when the flames of the fire rage suddenly tall above him. He rolls away on his elbows to stare above at the wall of it. It is like a conjured mirror made from heat. He thinks he sees images that fall apart in the embers that dance around him.

Flint steps out of the wall of flames like a doorway and Silver releases a breath of fearful surprise.

The fire dies down behind him to its usual shape as Flint with his crown of twigs, now alight with small flames that slowly burn out into the dark.

The smoke of his entrance is like a ring of dark fog that orbits him. His eyes search over him as if to spot a lie.

“I am doing what you asked,” Silver relays.

Flint steps around to the other side of the fire and sits behind it. The flames reach upwards, blocking part of his face.

Silver sits up and moves closer across from Flint.

“I understand the void. It spoke to me before you crawled out of it and now it is silent. I knew you could bring about change amongst the men. You were a seed but since you came here my influence, my abilities have been waning. The old gods are reliant on belief. Which you lack.”

Flint words crawl inside his skull and he holds them against his periphery. He could lie and say he didn’t lack belief but Flint would know. He expects the truth and yet Silver doesn’t know what that is yet.

“Gates’ disappearance has sewn doubt into the men. I am merely surviving,” Silver replies.

“Do you not wish to do something more than simply survive? I look at you now, made from soil, from the void and I see a survivor but that is the beginning state of evolution. Do you not wish to evolve?”

Silver watches the flames create shadows over Flint’s pale skin and the crown that rests on his wild red hair.

“What does this evolution entail?” Silver questions even if deep down he found a primal enjoyment in stepping into the unknown.

“To be given my embrace.”

Silver feels a shiver pass over his skin at the soft tone and he suddenly feels as though he is falling into a dark blurry pit. As if he is reversing and being born once more.

The truth of the matter is, he may not believe in the cause as a whole. He may not be devout in its myriad of traditions and rules but this…creature, very much like a man is giving him a new kind of faith.

Silver can’t help but cross the uncertain border of curiosity, “To be given the place in which Peter Ashe used to reside?”

“Beyond that.”

It’s a moment later of the silent exchange of expressions between them before the fire suddenly burns out and Flint is gone. There is only dark smoke which blends with the background of night.

\--

By the morning when he lies by the quiet burned out fire, he thinks of the act itself. He thinks of ending Peter Ashe’ life and he pretends it would be for the protection of his group but it was for _him_. To appease him. He wants to see where this void leads. He isn’t sure what that makes him anymore.

The trek to Peter Ashe’s abode isn’t a long one. Although when he arrives he only finds ruins. The charred remains of a house that once stood against the trees.

Silver glances at the map Billy drew messily but it does no good. There is nothing left. He would guess Ashe himself did this to cover his trail but he doesn’t believe he’s gone far.

He doesn’t understand his accurate perception and often he would bury it to appear like the others. Wide-eyed and afraid but he’s been more aware than afraid with the trap they found themselves in.

Billy believes it is a trap but Silver is starting to see the other side may not be the bars of a cage but something else entirely. Simply a door.

Flint willingly admitted by the fire that leaps from his skin that he is nothing without them. Without him. Without belief. An old God that would wander alone in search of purpose, the very way a mere human being would.

Is that what they all are? Old forgotten Gods?

Silver knows that Flint would view it as a demotion but his eyes are wide open. He can see perfectly clear the charred remains of Ashe’s old abode and the dried drops of blood that lead into the brush of the forest once more.

He slips his boots off because he’s used to the twigs cracking beneath his skin and it’s easier to be silent. He pushes his way through a thicket of bushes that houses thorns but he avoids them before they latch onto his clothes.

There’s a dark space of muted green where moss has taken over a ridge of jagged rock. Beneath the vines, hidden in the darkened shadow is the maw of a cave ahead. The darkness of it matches the pit. Only this time he is able to step inside it without falling into forever.

It hadn’t been long since Ashe’s hide-out was burned and it made him wonder if Billy warned him. If Billy lost his trust in Silver. Silver couldn’t blame him. He never understood why people trusted him in the first place, they didn’t know his thoughts or the origins of them. They didn’t understand the darkness he harbors that he is beginning to recognize himself. He’s let things take root inside him that he is unable to extract without removing something vital.

He enters the cave without a torch, relying on sound to guide him. The dripping of rainwater echoes amongst the rock walls like a sad symphony.

He runs his fingers over the lumpy cold wall beside him until he begins to see the dim light of glow worms ahead congregating in groups in the inlets. His skin is bathed in the ethereal low light as he follows the curve of the cave like a snake.

Around the bend, down the passageway is the shadow of a blue hue casting on the wall from a separate room. He presses his bare feet to the cold stone and rests his hand on the hilt of his dagger as he nears the moving shadows. He watches them rise and fall like puppets.

It’s quiet in the next room with the large glow worms collecting in the corners. He hears the smooth sound of a boot on the sand of a rock but turns too late before he’s being pushed up against the rock wall.

“Who are you?!” The voice hovering above him breathes.

Peter Ashe’ face is inches from his holding him to the wall with a dull blade. He has a scraggly gray beard and his hair is loosely tied back with dried dirt in the strands. He appears worse off than Silver or the other men with their odd relationship to the soil.  

Silver could remove the dagger he was given and plunge it into this man’s chest without a note from his voice but he’s always been too curious for his own good.

“Billy sent me here,” Silver lies but he can see from Peter’s expression that the lie doesn't work.

He steps back holding out his dagger like a wounded animal ready to strike its final blow on the predator. “I was warned that one of their followers was coming.”

Silver suspects then that his perception had been right, that Billy didn’t wish to take any chances. His trust in Silver has vanished.

“Did you murder their third? The woman who is now an effigy?” Silver dives into the deep dark lake of this discussion without a thought to further pretending.

Peter’s face breaks out into a small smile and it looks oddly smug for a man that looks ready to crawl back inside the earth like an insect.

“What did they ask of you? To take my heart? Their ritual won’t work. You are merely a pawn to them, as was I. We all are. To Flint.”

“If I wish to make myself into a pawn for the time being then the choice is mine alone. Why did you betray the Flame, Peter?” Silver asks and Peter sidesteps into the shadow away from the glow as if to mask his expression from him.

“If you are here to kill me, then why the questions?”

Silver shakes his head and stands upright from the wall, pressing his feet to the cold ground. The dagger remains tied to his rope belt.

“I’m curious to hear all sides of this unfortunate drama.”

Silver spoke a truth. He was curious, curious about whether or not he could plunge the dagger into Peter’s heart and take back the prize. One life for another. He’s curious if Peter will have the courage to attack him but he thinks that he is somehow afraid of Silver.

Peter steps back into the blue glow that bathes his features and he looks suspiciously confused, “my daughter.”

Silver tilts his head at him, unexpected with the turn of topic.

“Your daughter?”

“They took my daughter, Abigail, as a sacrifice. I was merely one man and could not exact the revenge I wished to. I did what I could.”

It would make sense as to why Peter Ashe felt strongly enough to even attempt to stay in these woods without fleeing. Peter's a liar though. He can see it in the lines of his mouth. 

“Why did they take your daughter?”

“It doesn’t matter to you, why should I voice anything further?”

In a distant plane of thought Silver found that it did matter or that it should matter. He is unable to decipher the difference now. Whether or not he feels something or he should feel something. It is a thin line to cross.

He’s become good enough at pretending that he even fools himself and fools the others around him that he is one of them. That he did not crawl from the pit created from the darkness.

“Tell me what you know of Flint.” Silver requests.

Peter’s bitter smile arrives back on his lips and he shakes his head, “that abomination—”

His words are cut short when a torch behind them resting in spider webs lights up like a claw of flame. The room basks in its glow and Silver glances back at Peter who suddenly appears wide-eyed with terror. He lunges forward towards the flame to dose it with a bucket of water beside it and Silver realizes why Peter refuses to light the torches surrounding the room they are in.

“You brought him here, didn’t you?” He whispers. 


	4. Ash of the Earth

Breathing. That is all he is.

One breath after another like a pattern he’s given himself.

His hands are shaking and they are stained with speckles of fresh blood. He’s sitting against a rock wall outside of the cave in the night but unable to see the stars.

His tattered clothes are splashed with blood and his face is smeared with the wetness of it. He ran his fingers over his cheeks as if to stain his skin on purpose. To mark his guilt.

He is a disconnected piece, floating into the void without direction.

It wasn’t him that tore into Peter Ashe, even if he was witness to the feral evisceration.

Flint came made of fire, come to life by the torches molding together in the circular tomb of a cave and Silver fell back against the wall with certain terror as the screams began.

He watched Flint tear Peter’s heart from his chest as if it always belonged to him.

Silver scrambled and crawled forth from the cave covered in the aftermath and sat against the dirt to make sense of his surroundings.

Who's he now?

He felt nothing for Peter Ashe, even though he wished to.

It was a monstrous thing Flint had done and yet he can feel the necessity of it. The importance and that alone terrified him more than the death of Ashe.

He clung to the one thing that drew a pitiable amount of disgust from him and that was Peter Ashe’ daughter Abigail. Peter claimed they sacrificed her to their cause and Silver wouldn’t be surprised if that were somehow true.

Silver’s eyes are drawn to the dark figure that stood in front of him. Thomas had come out of the night with a comforting smile resting on his face. He was hopeful and staring at Silver as if he held the sun in his stained palms.

“It wasn’t me…Flint…” Silver begins and Thomas nods, knowing the fate already.

He knows Silver wouldn’t have been able to do the task and he thought that would mean his death but by the look of Thomas, it seems to be the opposite.

Silver closes his eyes when he hears Flint exit the cave in a breath and he listens to their whispers like they reside in his head, perching their words on his very own tongue.

“Take this to her, I will guide him,” Flint whispers and Thomas says nothing. Silver can hear the passing of cloth that he suspects is the heart and then the soft footfalls disappear once again.

Silver opens his eyes and sees that Thomas is gone. There is nothing but the dark crowded woods ahead of him like a promise.

He turns to his left and sees Flint slide down the wall into the grass with his legs outstretched and bathed completely in Peter’s blood. Silver suspects he painted himself with it.

“I could not do it,” Silver says quietly. If he is to be next then he wishes for him to be done with it once and for all.

“I was curious but I suspected that your heart wouldn’t allow it,” Flint replies and he sounds relieved.

Silver didn’t wish to study the inflection like a gem and wonder why at this moment he felt the ebbing hum of him collapse into his skin in absorption.

“It was monstrous,” Silver dares to exclaim and Flint is silent.

He watches their god who appears small in the darkened shadow with his wild hair in his face and his hands that are strong enough to rip him apart.

The moon is kind enough to provide them with a glowing path back into the trees but he isn’t ready to traverse it yet.

“Did you use Abigail Ashe as a sacrifice?” Silver’s voice is low and hiding the tremble from his throat.

“What does it matter?” Flint is stoic as usual and he doesn’t seem to give anything away. He doesn’t seem bothered by the prospect either.

“Peter told me that was why he sought revenge.”

“Do you believe everyone that clucks their tongues? What does the soil tell you?”

Silver rests his hand against the dirt and presses his fingers into the cold earth below him.

“It’s silent to me. I have never heard it speak.”

Flint glances at him; the shadow of a beast and says, “because it is like looking into a reflection. We are the fabric of these fears, these trees. ”

The world twists like the clicking of a cog.

“Is it my faithlessness that keeps me alive?” Silver boldly questions and Flint stands from the ground like a tower and steps closer to loom gracefully over him.

“I will be your monster if you wish it.”

The tone of his voice shifts into something bordering on defeat and Silver gets a glimpse of the humanity The Flame keeps hidden.

“I don’t need a monster,” he admits and Flint nods once before turning to walk towards the trees.

He doesn’t speak but Silver knows he wishes for him to follow. He could try to run but it would be useless. This is his domain even if it is shrinking with each day that goes by.

\--

They walk through shrunken bushes and shrubs that reach out to take an offering from his skin. They snap and crackle like a fire beneath their feet. They don’t speak for hours and there is no difference between daylight and night. All is like smoke in a darkened masked fury.

The doubt plants a seed in his mind. Even after witnessing Flint slaughter Peter with his own eyes he still is unable to grasp the concept of him sacrificing Abigail. It was the way his expression twitched with the notion. He cared if Silver believed him to be a beast and that was curious. He wants to push and prod even if it is taunting a lion out of his den. He is more than willing to face this lion even if it means a trip back into the place he climbed out of.

He’s surprised that he isn’t terrified, that he isn’t angry or self-preserving. The soil is calling him home. He can feel it like the beat of an erratic heart. The stone of it lies on his tongue.

He can taste the roots and smell the wet earth but he can’t remember much beyond it.

“Did you conjure me here?” Silver asks because he needs to know he’s real and not a God’s imaginings come to life but there is no answer to satisfy his uneasiness. It wouldn’t be that easy, would it?

The forest opens up to a gnarled ugly sight that stretches into the horizon like a scar.

All around him is the charred remains of trees burnt and blackened. The ash collects against his feet, perpetually falling from the rumbling sky. There is the sound of thunder but no rain. This place is dying and Silver is a witness to it.

“Soon the whole forest will resemble this. My presence is eating away the earth and yet I cannot leave because without belief, without a cause, I lose my connection to the depths.”

“You need me to believe in you,” Silver summarizes and looks out to the embers that are embedded in the bark.

They walk on through the skeletons of overgrowth and Silver watches the ash collect in Flint’s hair like soot, staining the red into something old and muted.

Silver found that he already did believe in him but not the God himself, as if they existed as two separate entities.

“Every flock needs a Sheppard and I had you cast as such for the group. They believed in you and through that they believed in me. It was enough for a time but time wilts like any flower, it is a construct of its own belief. You came to us and Thomas and I watched you from afar.”

Flint’s voice carries around him like a warm caress and Silver lifts his palm out to the collect the ash like snow against his stained skin. Peter’s blood still marked his wrist like a foreshadowing.

“It wasn’t you who brought me here?” Silver asks and Flint turns to grace him with a shake of his head, “then who did?”

“That is your story, not mine.”

The answer is enough to settle them into an odd quiet as they traverse the dead forest like phantoms. They’re wanderers of another kind.

He follows Flint cautiously aware through the path he sets.   

The land acts as a divide against carcasses of trees. They are standing in the future of their home. He could see the edges slowly burning.

Beyond the sticks is a torn tent with torches surrounding it. There is a path of burnt orchids reaching inside like a guide. He steps on the crunch of them as Flint lifts the flap and enters without a word, leaving him to the dying world around them.

Silver quickly steps inside and spots the concrete altar with a woman resting in a forever sleep. Beneath her is a velvet red cloth that is draped over the center of the altar. She is holding a singed bouquet of orchids against her chest with her pale eyes closed.

Silver kneels and bows his head, breathing in the fire, the soot that traps itself in his lungs. He spots Thomas’ boots come into view. He softly sets his hand on Silver’s head again as if to commend him with his touch.

He lifts his head and peers up at Thomas who motions for him to stand.

Silver complies and spots Flint standing beside the altar with Peter’s heart in his hands, the blood is still dripping and not yet dry.

Nothing is said.

It is a sacred private ritual that they let him witness. He stands at the edge of the tent and watches the care put into each movement as they pass the heart to one another and let the blood drip on the woman below them; staining her clothes.

They loved this woman. They loved each other. Silver can feel the intensity of it sharper than a blade.

The room is bathed in a low glow with hues of flames emanating from unknown sources. It scrambles his breath that collects in his chest and he feels caught out by it. The aroma of burnt wood wraps around his throat gently. It could choke him and burn him up but it doesn’t. It lets him breathe in this space.

Through the plume of the opening of the veil, Thomas and Flint turn to him, creating a path to Miranda. They invite Silver to step close and become their third. They don’t force him to move. The exit is behind him for him to run back into the burning wood or to step forward into a new purpose.

Thomas smiles at him and Flint eyes him curiously. They already know he is going to say yes. That he is going to choose to become a part of them, of this, of her.

Silver steps forward towards the altar and Flint steps in front of him, “I am to connect you.”

Flint reaches out setting his fingers to Silver’s pulse point on his neck which startles him but not enough to step back. He feels the searing edge of something taking away his skin and he cringes before Flint’s hand leaves him. Silver rests his hand on the now scarred ridged skin over his pulse point.

“The spiral to home, so that you may never be lost,” Flint comments and Silver swallows feeling lighter as if he could float away like a feather taken willingly captive by the wind outside.

It ravages the land and ash but it also whispers, touches and provides guidance.

“What am I to do?” Silver asks because there is a task to be set. He can feel it in their exchanged glances. Their communication is beyond words. Thomas and Flint are one, separate pieces and he is something to help keep the balance between them.  

Thomas steps forward beside Flint and rests his hand gently on Silver’s shoulder. It’s cold like ice, the opposite of flame and he feels like a conduit.

Thomas’ voice is like a lullaby in its quiet thoughtfulness, “only you can reach the gate in the pit. Flint will accompany you but he cannot enter the depths without you. Beyond the gate is the Mire where Miranda’s soul resides in the field of reeds. The heart of her murderer told me so. Will you help us, third?”

“You want me to climb back into the pit?” Silver’s heart jumps into his throat but he doesn’t falter from their eyes as much as a part of him is tempted to run.

He knows he escaped a doom from beneath but what choice is there? The woods are dying with the presence of The Flame.

“Miranda will provide balance?” Silver questions and Thomas removes his hand gently from his shoulder and says, “she will heal this land, there will be light again as there once was.”

Silver steps back on a breath. The room is a suffocating precipice. He can hardly breathe amongst it. Amongst these dying Gods. Was he one himself? Has he forgotten even that?

It could be so.

He leaves them, throwing the flap open from the tent and feeling the heat of the outside burning world scrape across his cheeks like searing nails. The spiral brand on his neck pulses with embers that make him dizzy with a despair that he held long ago.

He slowly falls to his knees against the burnt petals as if he is to worship the dead. He feels as though he is already falling.

He can see a large mountain in the background on fire, all the trees crying out in agony and he is to be their salvation.

“The burden is a great one.”

He hears from Flint’s voice as he approaches him. He steps in front of Silver blocking the view of the burning mountain and Silver looks up at him like the towering deity he is. The ash-filled wind catches his red hair and blends it with the flames. He looks like the burning earth come alive.

He holds out his hand to Silver as a gesture of peace and Silver softly sets his hand in his, still on his knees and he thinks for the first time since arriving in this hell that he is finally seeing something worth believing in.


	5. Hades and Hephaestus

To be consumed by fire.

Not as his own destruction but simply rebirth, is something Silver entertains as Flint and him journey back to the camp of men.

Silver already feels different than when he first stepped into these dark woods. He suspects it is a corruption but he doesn’t mind it. His mind is his own and yet he is willingly theirs, his.

“I must ask that you banish Billy, not burn him. As I suspect you did to Abigail.” Silver speaks without a question and it hangs there in the dark.

Flint steps up beside him like the warmth of a furnace and says, “Abigail Ashe wished for freedom from her father and his control. She came to me and Miranda seeking a way out.  A way into the living world, which none of us have seen. Yet, Miranda provided a path for her to leave this behind and start again. We gave her life so that she was not trapped here.”

The truth of it hits him between the ribs like the cold metal edge of a sword.

“You saved her.”

Silver’s words leave him and travel far, back to the ash, back through the burn, the bone road and the fog veil of creation itself.

\--

The men hunker together like rats in small groups, avoiding them and bowing as if they know Silver is now part of The Flame. He doesn’t look for Billy’s glower, there is too much at stake.

He heads for the pit as if his feet could carry him with his eyes closed.

He stands beside Flint at the gaping opening as if it had teeth below in the dark. He could jump and never reach the end, he could jump and smash his bones beneath, he could jump and find what he is looking for. He isn’t sure which scenario terrified him the most.

Flint moved to the other side like the lion he is and waits patiently watching him from beneath shadow. He can hear the men whispering behind him and can feel their confusion.

Silver now stood equally with their god and he suspects it unnerves them. Their Sheppard has finally began to evolve.

He closes his eyes and the only sound that he concentrates on is the flickering of torches in the far away background of distance.

“Trust in me.”

Flint’s voice echoes all around him as if it crawled out of the pit as well. He is surrounded by the cadence of it.

Silver’s feet teeter on the edge and he thinks this is the true definition of pure belief.

There’s a deep breath and then he falls forward with the sloping of his heart that lurches into his throat.

He’s falling into the warm darkness but it doesn’t feel like falling. It is a fast glide back to his birth, back in time, as if he is journeying into space.

He is surrounded by history even if it’s simply mud and the roots that embraced him. Those branches slow his fall without pain. Silver’s slowly being cradled in the earth and all that he is becomes pieces connected to whispers he can’t quite hear.

This limbo was his home and there are hands to guide him where he doesn’t deserve them. There’s an old fear forming in the wind that captures his face in the fall. It is not his fear but a collection of others, molding together. 

He loses himself and when he wakes it is to the burning familiar touch of the Flame.

He blinks his eyes at the figure on fire that evaporates into a man once more.

“The gateway is near,” Flint says and Silver coughs against the dirt. He slowly sits up as his limbs protest from the effort and stares ahead at the dark mud passageway that leads to the true opening of their Underworld.

Flint is their light, with the fire in his palm like a torch and a beacon all at once.

“We’ve reached the bottom.”

Silver’s words crawl out of his skull.

There’s an eerie misplaced reverie like a soft hum coming from ahead of them and Flint walks on. Silver stands, looking down at his stained palms. He thinks Peter’s blood has now absorbed into his skin.

There is an intensity to Flint’s stature he has not witnessed in the moments he’s spent with him. He’s apprehensive about entering the void and yet in the stories that were told The Flame always wished to return to his beginning.

“I was led to believe you always wished to come back here.”

Flint waits for him at the end of the short passage at a rusted gate that stretched high above into the dark where they can’t see its end.

“I escaped and never wished to return but I knew I would one day. I did not know it would be for her.” Flint’s voice is soft and sure with confident vulnerability. He controlled his openness.

He stepped out of Silver’s way, tilting his crowned head at the gate because only Silver has the means to open it but he doesn’t know how. 

He is sweating from the unknown warmth that seeps from the mud and places his hand at the opening of the bars as if to will them to release.

“You came through here, you opened the gate,” Flint presses and Silver shakes his head, “I don’t remember.”

His memory is slowly becoming an irrelevant thing, something not to be held accountable. He could not rely on himself any longer.

“Can you not remember?” Flint asks and Silver reaches out to the cold metal. He closes his eyes and runs his fingers over the bars.

He remembers running, the frantic pace of it, the walls were collapsing, the mud was attempting to take him back.

How does one remember their birth?

“I was escaping. I escaped,” Silver states and opens his eyes to the dim light that emanates from Flint. This god is his guide and yet he feels like he’s standing shoulder to shoulder as an equal.

“There is only one way out of such madness. It is to escape.”

Flint’s words are like the smoke left over from a dosed flame.

Silver holds out his hand to The Flame with his palm up and Flint studies the lines in his skin as if he has a fortune to tell. He reaches forward with his ashen stained skin. When Flint’s warm palm meets his it is like a flood.

The feeling of falling and the fire that resided in his other palm shifts to the one that touched Silver. They both latch onto the bars of the gate and Silver begins to feel as if he was melting from the inside out. The agony of it collected in his throat and he releases a grunt before the gate huffed, screeched and then opened.

Flint quickly removed his hand from Silver’s palm as Silver cradled it against his chest but the pain, the flayed skin, is already beginning to heal and fade away.

He was living in a fable.

The spiral scar Flint had given him earlier as mutual payment throbs against his pulse point. He’s lit up and more alive than he’s ever been.

He watches The Flame walk on into the dark towards another passageway that twists like a labyrinth and Silver thinks of a childhood that was never his.

He thinks of memories that he’s given himself to make believe and to conjure a sense of normalcy.

“You think you’ve lived out there beyond this. You think you’ve earned a birth but it isn’t so. That is where the madness takes hold, making you believe things about yourself that have never been true. You’ve always been here, haven’t you? Since before time.”

Flint speaks as if he is in awe of Silver and Silver follows him becoming something more than a Sheppard. He remembers sleeping on bones, he remembers the whispers of the dead and the clay made guilt that he’s built himself.

“I don’t remember,” Silver breathes and he lets his feet guide him because this body of his knows where to journey.

\--

The labyrinth of passageways into the beyond are like veins of a beast long dead. They are traveling inside a fossil to the heart.

“Did you not rule a part of this place?” Silver asks and walks beside The Flame.

Flint has his hand afire, held out to guide them.

“I was merely a part of it.” Flint steps up to the beginnings of a deep chasm like a gash in the dark. He stands in front of him holding out the flame in his palm as an offering and the ethereal burn of the glow captures Silver’s eyes. The feral beauty of Flint’s aura is like reaching inside of himself. “This is your domain, you can feel it. The mud is your skin and yet your heart is not dead. You’ve given up your memories on purpose to fit into a ghost. The shape that you are. Tell me what it is you feel?”

Silver’s expression collapses as if these answers tore him to pieces and yet he is still standing.

“This is not my home. I escaped it.”

Silver words waver from him in a shattering.

“At first I believed you to be a trick, like a trick of light, that you knew, that you had plans for me and mine but not now. You genuinely do not remember. You must use your memory of smell, touch, and sound to push us further,” Flint reassures with an odd kindness.

“Who am I? You know who I am and yet you don’t speak it,” Silver surmises and Flint bows his head to the dirt before snuffing out the flame in his palm.

“The god of this realm abandoned it, make your own conclusions, Silver. Now, fall with me,” Flint says softly and Silver blinks at him in the dark, adjusting his eyes to the shadow creature in front of him that is The Flame.

He steps up to the edge of the chasm that doesn’t appear to have an end and he thinks of how many infinities they must endure but he is not alone this time.

He looks to the god to his right who appears as if he is waiting for Silver to jump first.

“I never…wanted…” Silver stops his words before remembering ruminations of long ago, “I never wanted to rule the mud.”

“Take us to the Field of Reeds, Hades,” Flint’s voice echoes in the dead chamber and then he shoves Silver off the edge, falling with him.

The two of them like marbles glistening in an old forgotten truth.

\--

Hades.

His name, his shadow and yet it isn’t. Not anymore.

Did such a story operate on simplistic principles that revealed villains? Or was he simply like the rest?

He remembered the weight of the burden, the coldness he succumbed to for an eternity of darkness. He was the guardian of the dead.

He remembers the suffocation and the falling flecks of dirt that marred his skin. He wasn’t this anymore. He wasn’t him. His past is as detached as a dark fairytale.

He’s floating with his arms outstretched toward a nonexistent light, in the deep cold murky water of the below. He could drown in the form that he is now and yet he doesn’t fight to surface.

He waits for the hand to reach down into the deep and grab his wrist to haul him into a breathable space.

He coughs up water while lying on the stone and when he rolls on his back and he sees above him the tower that is Flint, watching him with an old curiosity.

To have known someone for an eternity and yet have no recollection of it leaves him stumbling in the cavern of his own thoughts.

“This doesn’t look like the Field of Reeds as I remember it.”

Flint’s voice echoes around them both.

The cave is a deep chasm that slips beneath the earth. They are in the pocket of air within the fossil and they must move out of the bone maze.

He sits up as his hair drips against his neck and he looks to a crevice barely noticeable in the lack of light.

“I feel as if we are about to crack the shell of this place,” Silver surmises and Flint nods trusting his judgment.

He wants to ask him what else he knows of this ‘Hades’ and of his shadow. What made him escape and why had he chosen to abandon such eternity? The answer could be a simple one but he lacks the strength to push his mind further into its abyss.

He is still haunted by his own jagged shape, even more so now than ever.

“What does your heart speak?” Flint asks.

“It doesn’t. It is silent as this earth. I am disconnected from this place. The tether is lost. I don’t know why that is.”

He suspects if he conversed with his other self that neither of them would have much good to share between them both. He would still be a god who has become snapped loose from his moorings.

“I cannot tell you what you sought. The past is a ruin but that is your own excavation.”

“Thomas told me something similar. Did I know him from before?” Silver dares to question.

He stands with Flint and begins to walk to the cracked blackened rock ahead of them.

“All knew you. Your silence was heard by us all when you disappeared from this place. Hades chose to abandon memory for a story told only by mud and breath.”

Silver reaches into the pit of his own heart where the darkness lies dormant and pulls forth a name that holds against his tongue before release, “Hephaestus.”

“A name I have not heard since time molded the horizon but it was mine. I suspect such power isn’t held in reciting it any longer. You suffer the same fate.”

Flint says as he points to the deep scar in the rock.

Silver glances at Flint once more merely equals despite the imbalance of belief. He steps inside the scar through the roots and brambles. The gnarled thorns are no match for him and they slither away like frightened snakes. This place is hiding from Silver too. He didn’t see it before.

The hole of this world remembers him and he steps towards the slice of light that cuts itself through the dark and he feels as if his heart has reformed once again.

The Field made of creation lies ahead of them with a soft silent acceptance neither of them has ever known.  


	6. Immolation

Their skin is swallowed by light. He’s never been bathed in such a warmth, he has never seen the sun in its true form, blazing bright but without malice above them. There are small puffy white clouds dotting the sky and in front of them is a field of golden wheat caressing their forms.

Silver reaches out to touch the divine wisps between his fingers and Flint stands beside him looking like nothing more than a man. His tired eyes shone towards the horizon. A horizon that leads into an eternity.

“Can you feel it?” Flint asks and Silver searches his mind for the answer.

There is no suffering in this bright oasis, he doesn’t feel fear or pain. There is only the truth.

They are bare like skeletons; wide open and ripped from their shells.

Out into the vastness is a golden tree that softly sways a welcome and behind that is a cottage in the glow.

Silver finally understands what Flint asked. This isn’t simply a lost soul of a god. She’s embedded in this Underworld, this Field. He can feel her everywhere, in everything, as if the ground itself is her cheek.

“She’s everywhere.”

Silver speaks and Flint heads for the cottage as if pulled by a magnet.

The closer they get, the more Silver feels a tether pulled taut between them both. There’s a familiarity to their movements as if they’ve been in such a space before together.

What can’t he remember? What did Hades wish to forget?

The golden tree releases petals of embers that collect in their hair, renewing their skin and removing the grime of crawling in the mud to get there.

Silver feels apprehensive as if he is about to step inside of himself or find the shell he left behind. Even if the warmth is an honest one.

“There is something you aren’t telling me, I can feel it in the back of my skull,” Silver says aloud and Flint doesn’t turn back to him, although he watches his back tense up as if he’s been caught.

He doesn’t say a word.

The tree has given Silver his own crown of golden leaves that rest atop his head. His hair is now against his shoulders like a mane.

Flint’s stature is taller, more lively in this place. He appears younger but not lacking the grimness in his eyes from an infinity lived amongst the world.

They stand together at the front of the cottage with its vines growing along the walls pleasantly. Its an inviting pathway to its front door but Flint blanches and remains still.

He doesn’t approach it. Instead, he walks beyond it to the back and Silver follows.

There in the gleam of light is a gate of hedges that opens in a natural archway to a garden. A garden teaming with vibrant flowers that paint the earth below. Beneath a canopy of a low lying tree is a figure tending to the garden with a straw hat resting on her head. She’s wearing a simple green dress which she wipes her hands on gracefully and turns to face them.

Flint releases a breath of devastated hope and she stands at the edges of the growing garden with a small smile. She slowly approaches them because Flint is now pulled into her orbit.

She is beautifully made of light and Silver thinks he remembers her. He remembers her face. He remembers her hand resting on his to help string together the broken pieces of himself.

Eir. That was her true name. The goddess of healing.

She steps up close to Flint and reaches out resting her palms on his cheek. His eyes shine with unmatched reverence at her presence. Her expression is one of serenity and filled with an ancient adoration.

“Horus?” She asks.

Flint cradles her palm in his like a precious gem.

“He did not come but he discovered where you rest,” Flint’s voice is soft and vulnerable.

Silver knows without much thought that Thomas’ true name is Horus; all gods in their own right. They were somehow bound together in this land of the dead.

She turns her attention to Silver like a beacon, searching him out in the shadow he creates wherever he steps.

She has an adoration for him as well and he is thankful there is no hate to be found in her features. She steps closer to him, barefoot against the soft grass and rests her hands lightly on his shoulders.

Flint is observing with a careful sadness directed at him that he is unprepared for. He feels the same grief as if they shared it once between them.

The small sad smile she had held a recognition for him.

“You’ve returned,” her voice is a whisper and she stares into him. She picks apart the barrier he’s devised.

“We’ve come to bring you back.”

Silver’s reply is hollow. He recognizes the exchange and what she is to this place. She is not a wandering soul seeking out its own pleasures. She is this place as he was once.

Had he somehow passed the crown onto her? A burden he thought it to be once but she wears it with humility and a beautiful awareness.

“It cannot be,” Flint’s voice is a broken tune. He’s realizing the scale of such a thing. Her eyes leave Silver’s and she finds Flint once again, standing in the light. She is enveloping them whole without expectation.

“When I arrived here by Peter’s hand, Hades presented me with a choice and I gave him one in return.”

Silver closes his eyes to her voice and feels the anger begin to radiate from Flint as if he’s opened up a new chasm.

“What have you done?” Flint asks Silver but Silver can’t look at him. He’s lost the truth of it.

He hears Miranda’s bare feet press into the grass between them, “Hades is no more. I helped him realize that final dream.”

“But you? You’ve taken his place. You…the guardian of the dead.”

Silver opens his eyes to match Flint’s voice with his mournful expression.

“Spend as much time as you need in this place but know this, that it will only serve as an opening to you both. For him to remember Hades and his reasons and for you to let go,”

Miranda is kind with her wording but Flint’s devastation spreads.

“Let go? We’ve come here to retrieve you, Thomas awaits. We were going to put a stop to the destruction,” Flint reaches out to her and she takes his hand in hers.

“Both of you come inside.”

She invites them along the path of greenery to the inside of her cozy abode. There is a quiet fire crackling in the fireplace and ancient books lining the walls with tattered covers. It smells of parchment and rain-soaked earth.

There are large chairs that bracket the hearth and glow in the flickering flame. They sit in each of them, three corners like a partial square.

The fourth chair remains empty.

Silver sits next to Flint who eyes him with a dissipating fury. The anger is an old one but bound up to hide guilt. Guilt made from Silver.

“I will return shortly but I give you this time to weigh your hearts here,” Miranda says and Flint attempts to stand but she holds her hand up in protest.

“I will return. I must ask you to search your own acceptance before a goodbye can be reconciled.”

She’s adamant in her belief but also accepting to her own fate. A fate she wanted. Silver remembers.

He remembers her asking to take the burden.

“There will be no goodbye,” Flint recites but she leaves the room without response. He stands to chase after her but stops in the doorway realizing she has gone to a place he can’t reach.

“It was you,” Flint whispers but lacking the usual fire. He turns to give Silver his full attention and Silver blinks at him before eyeing the flames fighting in the hearth.

Nothing is said between them for some time. Silver feels as though he is clawing at the walls of his own mind to get back inside. He needs to know, he wants to know.

There is no night in this place, no reason to feel cold. There is perpetual light where new plants sprout in the path they walked earlier.

Silver lies down on the bed that could have been his if he had chosen such a happiness amongst the dead but he is not of healing like Miranda.

He thinks he dreams as mortals do.

He dreams of a dark space beneath stone where he used to lie and stare up at the protruding cavern. He resided in a cave of his own creation. He could have given himself such beauty as the cottage but he never believed such a space would remain uncorrupted by him.

He dreams of speaking with Flint between time in a place where weavers wove the quilt of the stars. They stood by the goddess of fate and listened to her fingers run over the threads of their own stories. They were always tempted to look but never did.

_Israel Hands stood guard as vicious Cerberus at the door of such a glass palace. Regardless of these moments of conversation between Silver and Flint, they knew they would return to their respective corners. Silver would find his cave again and their voices would linger as an afterthought between them like a waterlogged parchment._

_They were close once. Close enough that Flint used to take Silver’s face in his hands as if to steal his thoughts. Silver would let him and the Underworld would be made aflame._

_Silver also observed the scholar of resurrection that was Horus, now called Thomas, who captured the attention of Flint as if he was more precious than the embers he conjured._

_Hades could not possess the surety of confidence that Horus did. The kind of confidence not made from ego but of truth in kindness and acceptance._

_Silver could see he was not much of their equal even if he triumphed over the fear of men’s hearts, he did not wish to be immortalized in such a symbol. He let the stories circulate of the imprisonment of the dead and his hold over their minds._

_He remembers that Flint still came to him in the chamber between time and he would still speak passionately about Prometheus and the gift he willingly bestowed. Silver_ listened _the way an hourglass does. It is patient to hold the eventual end of the fall of sand within it._

_In the space where a heart should be, he yearned for such a connection that Thomas and Flint were forming. He prepared for their eventual departure from his realm._

_Within each fast fading burn of a star that goes dark, he grew weary and cold. He forced himself to sleep atop skeletons who were forever silenced and didn’t grant a reprieve to those screaming in his mind for release._

\--

Silver wakes with a chill in his bones and to the tapping of rain on the window beside him. It was dark with gloom and the glass was wet. The Field of Reeds is mirroring Hades' grief, his grief.

“The sky is weeping. Is that your doing?” Flint asks from the doorway and Silver sits up running a hand over his face to placate the shaky revelations.

“I…I’m remembering.”

Flint steps inside the room to sit in a wooden chair across from him painted in shadow but his presence lights up the dark around them.

Silver dares to look at his face and the warmth he felt from long ago in his presence crowds his senses like being awakened from a long slumber. The pain of it is greater than an evisceration.

“Why did you leave this realm?” Flint asks softly and his tone glides inside of him beyond the walls.

“You know why,” Silver replies and he feels the chill of the dark once again.

His darkness has always been made of the freeze through desolate winters. He’s given himself what he believed he deserved.

“The burden is not something you had wanted to place on another. It was not our realm to preside over. I took the pilgrimage with Horus to watch him resurrect those who wished to be born anew,” Flint confesses.

“There is a deepness to your affection for one another that I could never match.”

A daunting silence filled with words on the verge of being voiced lies between them.

Thunder rumbles and Silver closes his eyes to the storm. The wind and rain told him of when he found Miranda. It told him when she rested her hands on his cheeks to collect his sadness like dust.

She had said: “Hades, let another bear the burden.”

There’s a crack of lightning and Silver opens his eyes to Flint who remains unafraid of the dark.

“You’ve passed this hell onto Miranda. Was it to punish me?” Flint’s voice matches the thunder and it resounds in his heart. The heart he’s given himself that she help cultivate.

“I didn’t seek revenge for you leaving. She found me and we gave each other what we needed most. She gathered my memories, gave me a mortal’s heart and I handed her the chains of the Underworld. She painted over the dark with her kindness. It is not a burden to her. Not like it was to me.”

The storm leaves them after a time and Silver sits in the garden of light. He expected the flowers to wilt at his presence but they remain vibrant beside him. He runs his fingers over the petals and they sway from the wind.

Miranda has not returned but Silver feels that she will soon when Flint is ready to let her go. Time has little meaning in these spaces. It rests here with them but it does not tick or run away. It resides in the wind that caresses his face.

Flint joins him a moment later and sits beside him on the bench encapsulated by this cocoon of theirs.

“Thomas knows of my affinity for Hades. He has always known. He wished to know him because of it. I struggled to grasp your reasons and your identity when we met again in the dying forest. I know now,” Flint says gently.

The confession isn’t unexpected but to hear it voiced after the years of turmoil is enough to ease the flood raging in his mind. It brings him back to himself. He is not Hades any longer, he is someone else entirely. His shape is still his own even if he doesn’t recognize the jagged edges of it.

He turns his attention to Flint who is watching him with a tamed quietness. There’s a softness to his features in this place. There is the guilt leftover that seeps between them. It was more shared than Silver realized. Hephaestus has faded along with Hades. They’re merely two entities sharing a horizon.

“I couldn’t ask you to join us. You presided over this place. I couldn’t ask you to abandon it but such a foolishness was in error. You abandoned it without my proposition,” Flint replies.

“I was not Atlas. I couldn’t carry the dead on my shoulders. I couldn’t make room inside such dark chambers for them. They would cry out to me and after a time I couldn’t hear them. They had become silent to me. Their muted agony left me feeling like a ghost in my own palace. That is why I…”

Silver halts his speech and studies the dark storm of green brewing in Flint’s eyes. It lacked the fire of anger but there is something more complex than grief or guilt. There is a maelstrom of memories that they shared that he still doesn’t remember. They are unfocused lost images he may never grasp.

It’s in this moment that Silver begins to realize that Hephaestus held more than an affinity for Hades. He held a darker fear, one only born when you’ve grown through hardship to love someone.

Silver releases the breath caught in his throat and he stands quickly from the bench. The intensity of the shared space is bending and contorting his sense of self. He sees Hades in the back of his mind and yet when he looks down at his palms now bathed in light he sees only a man.

He’s trembling as though he could shake apart and Flint steps in front of him with his familiar warmth blocking the flash of light and shrouding them both in it all at once.

“I can feel him still, Hades, but he is no more. I may never remember everything I shunned from myself but the sensations are there. The adoration of your equal company.”

Silver is cut from his very own mast but Flint steps in closer as if not to spook a wild animal and rests his hands on Silver’s shoulders.

There’s a shard of light passing between them that is centered when Flint sets his forehead gently against Silver’s to share the same breath. The past and present is melded from light giving way to the shadows.

Silver reaches out and grips Flint’s shoulders. He’s been embraced by The Flame again and the knowledge of the intimate familiarity they once conjured breaks the surface from its drowning.

“I cannot be rid of you,” Silver speaks and Flint breathes in his words. Their mouths are one without connecting.

He thinks that perhaps they were one being once before the birth of the sun. That they somehow separated into entities with memories to match.

It is a lonely revelation to realize that he has been separated from his other self for so long. Not simply Hades but Flint.

“I will ask what I did not before. Will you join Thomas and I beyond this place?” Flint whispers and Silver’s heart thumps between his ribs before he presses his lips forward to mesh with Flint’s.

The warm softness of his mouth is like holding the sun against his tongue. Their kiss bursts the landscape bright with besotted jewels of gentle points of light. 

Silver swallows Flint’s fury and makes it his own. Flint tastes the depths of Silver’s darkness and absorbs his melancholy. There is a balance that he hasn’t felt since they last shared the same space centuries ago.

He thinks the weaver of fate drew her hand on his thread now to cast a line along the Field.

When their lips part they climb into the wild vegetation that is Miranda’s garden and collapse together on the sighing grass.

Silver thinks of the chambers that they spoke in that resided in the stars as he devests of his rags of clothing. He thinks of the lyre in the shape of a constellation resting in the palace of time. Flint used to run his fingers over it as he is doing to Silver’s ribs now.  He counts them as if to remind himself that Silver is mortal, that he gave up his godhood for a quiet peace.

Silver connects his mouth to Flint’s freckled shoulder to bite lightly at the heat to beckon it forth.

He has dreamed of being consumed by flame. He’s dreamt it since he can remember, back into the cavern where he spent many nights alone thinking of the immolation.

He is slowly filled with fire as if he is becoming more than a shell. Flint breathes embers into his collarbone and Silver inhales the scent of Flint’s sweat given to him as his own.

Silver thinks of running his fingers over the threads of fate as a moan is pulled between them. He remembers sneaking around the chamber when the weaver slumbered. The threads had crumbled in his fingers and he cried out then, a cry that wailed into the depths of space. He thinks somewhere out there his scream is still drifting in the ether as a reminder of his foolishness.

He thought that he destroyed his own fate, that he would remain in a void for eternity and he set himself up for what he deserved. A darkness without The Flame.

He once settled within himself a goodbye he never voiced and even after contorting himself into the role of a mortal he still holds that goodbye like a lump in his throat.

As Flint burns him gently up from the inside, stealing pleas and revelations, that goodbye crumbles in his skin. Flint takes it from him with the feel of his lips against his neck.

He doesn’t see Flint as a god any longer. He simply believes in what’s beneath the veneer. He has always been entranced with what Flint gives him. He doesn’t love the idea of him through belief. Silver’s belief is a deeper one, one that cannot be broken. He’s tried to destroy his faith in Flint but nearly collapsed his mind in the process.

There is no need to speak of such a love but to experience it as if all of the time from the before is caving into Silver as Flint releases himself to him.

Flint wraps his arms around Silver as if to press him against his skin and cherish what’s been waiting to be collected.

“Silver,” Flint breathes in the haze and he knows his grief over Hades and what he once was has evaporated.

They are one again as they were in their own primordial memories.  

 


	7. Fate

Miranda arrives in the twilight she paints the sky. The blue hue encapsulates her shoulders like an iridescent glow. This place bends to her will like a blade of grass. There is only love to be found. 

Silver attempted to balance the love and the fear but couldn’t maintain the dream and as he drew into himself all those years he lost sight of his plans for the valley of the dead. They did not take kindly to his presence. They wailed and blamed him for their agony for which he didn’t release them. The guilt of such a fate is a haunting he’s yet to release.

Silver watches from beside a golden apple tree as Flint and Miranda stand in front of one another. He grasps her hands gently and she speaks, “it is here you must leave me.”

The wind hums around them and Silver listens to the birds in the background waking the day. He thinks of the strength it would take for Flint and Thomas to let Miranda go but Silver sees the acceptance forming in Flint’s shining eyes.

He loved her like no other and yet he wishes for her to be free. She doesn’t want to be a prisoner to their grief any longer.

She is more to this place than Silver ever was. She is not misery but renewal and in a centuries time, the world of the dead will heal its cracks that Hades left behind in his selfish abandonment.

He was careless. He knows that now. He understands his mistakes and attempts for the first time not to wound himself with the thoughts like knives. He may never forgive himself for the darkness he wrought once but he can step into someplace new and accept the shadow Miranda has helped him realize.

There is always more to the story. There is always more memories to traverse that he is yet to discover but for now, this is enough. This is a goodbye and the turning of a page.

Flint embraces Miranda and the sky opens to the sun in a brilliance that is blinding.

\--

After leaving the cottage, Flint sits in the Field beside Silver in quiet contemplation. His sadness is giving way to the bittersweet split in the paths.

Silver closes his eyes and lets the wind kiss his cheeks.

He is Flint’s silent guide after that, back through the brambles of the cavern that Hades created. Silver points to his old sleeping arrangement with the bones that are slowly fading.

There are no words between them. They are too heavy, even if they rest beneath their tongues. Instead, Flint touches the small of Silver’s back to imprint his hand through his shirt and the warmth captures him enough to forget the chill.

If he could he would say: ‘this is where I mourned for you and became the forgotten’

They weren’t meant to be here. With each step they took back to the entrance the heavier they felt. They are of the waking world and not one of the dark any longer.

Back through the tear in the stone, Flint grips Silver’s shoulder as if to hold him in place. They stand there in front of one another as Silver steps forward to place their foreheads together once more. It seems to ease the thunder in Flint’s skin and Flint rests his palm over Silver’s heart.

How long has Hades loved The Flame? He could not say. He only knows that as he contorted himself into Silver he carried that love through such a transition into someplace better. A place the connection deserved to thrive.

\--

There at the bottom of the pit that reached into the settlement is a spiral staircase. A staircase that wasn’t there when they first entered but that has materialized as if Silver imagined it.

They ascend the rocky core of it and wrap themselves around the roots that stretch out like fingers as cold as the depths of the soil. His skin is like ice from the sensation but Flint catches up behind him to provide the warmth and light between them.

Silver may possess a mortal form but he will never be like them, those of the settlement with whom he shared years of his life with. He is who brought them here after all. He’s the nightmare they condemned and Silver plans to cut loose the ties.

The spiral reaches above them into the perpetual night and as they reach the top the pit appears to widen at their exit. Silver stills himself in the familiar dreary mud.

The men are all waiting with their heads bowed in worship at the mouth of the pit. Their knees press into the earth and only Billy is visible at the back refusing to bow.

“You’re a betrayer,” he claims and the men shush him.

Flint steps up beside Silver but remains silent. The damp air rusts the resolve of the men but Silver remains resolute.

Thomas steps out of the woods stark against the sidelines of the shadowy trees. He’s waiting much like Flint for Silver to release his thoughts.

“It was I who brought you here through grief. I trapped you at the beginnings of this realm. A realm that used to be my burden,” Silver speaks softly but his voice echoes along the soil as if the grass is carrying it across.

The men sit up with dirt smudged faces. They’re blurred to Silver as if mere tools of the trade but as he stands in front of them like the Sheppard they know their faces become clearer.

“My true name was Hades but he is gone. I’ve crawled out of the pit and into this dying wood to live amongst you. To learn through lack of memory. You each gave me a place to rest. You each taught me of my own importance through your self-sacrifice. It’s time I repay the debt.”

The men trade looks of disbelief and Silver steps closer as he says, “I release you.”

At those words the torches that circled the settlement burn out and leave only smoke behind. They are left in a natural darkness and the whispers of the frantic men grow louder. Some flee and run towards the woods, others remain confused by lack of purpose. Silver’s guilt remains like an old friend. Only time can twist it into something good.  

Flint steps in front of him lighting up the dark with an expression of doubtfulness, “are you sure this is the right course?”

“We don’t need their belief. You never needed it. You have mine and Thomas’. That is enough.”

Silver’s answer placates Flint’s apprehensive turn of his lips. He studies the face in front of him as if it were his own. It is his own. They are each other.

“This is a trick!” Billy howls before he disappears into the forest after his brothers. Silver can’t help the madness that’s claimed Billy but he can help the others find some freedom. He doubts he will see most of them again.

He lets their lives that have collected in his mind dissolve. He cannot hold onto them because it is what keeps them here.

He had held onto them because he didn’t wish to experience the quiet depths of such loneliness but to experience aloneness with another is something else entirely. A contentment begins to form in his chest. One that is wretched and wounded but it is there.

Thomas approaches them carefully with grace and he eyes Flint once with fondness before switching his glance to Silver with the same adoration in his expression. He looks pleased with his decision and they don’t have to explain because Horus already understands their journey.

“Even the Underworld could not tame her?” Thomas asks with a sad smile.

“She is healing what we’ve destroyed in our separation,” Flint replies and Thomas nods.

“The fires are no more. The mountain doesn’t burn. The trees remain blackened but there is no heat to torment them. There is a new balance struck,” Thomas whispers between them.

Flint glances down at his open palms before grabbing a fistful of dirt to toss in ritual forward to mark the future of their bond.

Thomas steps in front of Silver with the small intimate smile on his lips and rests his hands gently on his shoulders. He is asking permission to move forward and Silver nods with an attempt at a smile. The expression feels as if it could crack apart his face but the action of it is an answer.

Thomas moves forward and embraces Silver tightly against him. Silver rests his palm against Thomas’ solid back and he closes his eyes.

Thomas whispers against his ear, “welcome home.”

It carries beyond them to where the sky is slowly released from the prison of the clouds. The clouds that Silver gave it.

 --

They walk beyond the outskirts of the trees where it gives way to scars in the earth from the flames that once devoured like beasts. Flint’s anger has dissipated into a hum of grief.

When they return to the tent where Miranda lay, they find that her body is gone as if it was never there. There is nothing left but the dead orchid petals that rest in the shape of her familiar form.

Silver knows what she would want most of all. She knew it was the three of them tethered together that could bring about the healing this crumbling world needed.

He had learned while lying in her garden beside Flint with the same breath that renewal is their purpose. If it makes them all mortals by the end of such a healing, then so be it.

Thomas sets his palm on Silver’s chest to remove the scar that bound them to the soil. Flint rests his fingers on Thomas’ over Silver’s heart and he is filled.

There will always be the guilt and the waning tide inside them. They share it now equally like three souls that were once one. Silver likes to believe that they operate as one entity and through that joining the soil sings.

As the morning passes with the shared bed for the three of them, as Thomas kisses Silver’s temple and Flint rests his fingers between his ribs, he thinks this is what falling has brought him.

They didn’t need the worship of trapped souls. This is their freedom through each other and the connection to the fresh burst of vegetation.

Soon the darkened sky gives way to purple hues of bruised wakefulness. The realm heals as they do and even if some scars will remain in the earth, the hand of fate has rested her palm over their shared abode.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really hope you enjoyed this fic! Let me know what you think and thank you for reading <3


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